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"Calling a fish a duck doesn’t make it anymore a duck than calling a wealthy person a job creator makes them create a single job. Republicans know this, but it is bad politics to actually admit it." - via Forward Progressives

The Lie About Job Creation Republicans Don’t Want You to Think About

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the con of Trickle Down Economics. Because that’s what I feel it is, a giant con. It was concocted by those with money and power to manipulate a society into believing salvation lies by giving them more while everyone else gets their scraps.

What I believe in is Demand Side Economics. Because you know what Trickle Down Economics fails to address directly? The real driving force behind our economy—demand.

Republicans like to call the wealthy “job creators.” It’s a great way to subjectively tell you that anyone of a certain income bracket creates jobs. They’re not rich. They’re not wealthy. They’re job creators!

In fact I read an article a while back where Republican strategists were telling conservative politicians they needed to avoid the terms “wealthy” or “rich” and find ways to inject the word “jobs” into more speeches.

Notice I didn’t say they told them to pass jobs bills. They simply said they need to say the word “jobs” more often. A good psychological tactic to manipulate the public by using a trigger word in “jobs” while doing nothing to actually create them.

Republicans like to champion their ideology on the premise that the rich and powerful need more so they can then “spread” that wealth down to us by the way of more jobs, better pay and increased benefits.


This, as we know, is a bunch of crap.

Almost all credible evidence of the last 30 years shows the gap between the wealthy and the middle class continues to widen, and at a record pace. This past decade, as the wealthy enjoyed some of the lowest taxes in history, the gap between the top 1% and the rest of us widened at a faster pace than at any other time in our history. I don’t have to remind you this all happened as our country fell into an economic hole not seen since the Great Depression.

But I thought Republicans said the more the top 1% get the better off we’ll all be? That’s what the con tells us, right? So, what’s the deal?

Well as with any con, the promised payoff is just a myth and the person being conned is left standing high and dry.

Trickle Down Economics fails because it doesn’t address the real true force behind our economy, consumer demand.

Sure the theory states that with lower taxes for the wealthy they’ll create more, better paying, jobs.

Those new jobs will then result in more personal income for the middle class to spend.

The reality though is that very little trickles down. It’s a fairy tale told to you by the people who stand to benefit the most if you buy into it.

So since Trickle Down Economics has been a total failure for 99% of the country, we need to usher in a new era of economics. Demand Side Economics. It’s time we pass it back up to the top 1% since they’ve shown unequivocally they have no intention of trickling anything down to the rest of us.

We shop at small businesses, they don’t.

We buy millions of products every day, they don’t.

We keep this free market economy rolling, they don’t.

We invest in our country, they don’t.

We are the job creators, not them.

The money they possess comes from our pockets. Without the factory worker, the server, the cashier, or the janitor they don’t enjoy the wealth Americans were conned into giving them. Yes, they spend a lot of money, but they make up 1% of the entire population. There are a lot more of us than there are of them. Sure they make investments, but many of them are in offshore bank accounts or spent on expensive international homes.

They gained power because millions of Americans were naive enough to buy into the idea these individuals, who spend millions lobbying politicians to pay as little in taxes as possible, want to give us some of their loose change.

We witnessed jobs get outsourced, eliminated and consolidated. We saw wages remain stagnate, benefits shrink and pensions all but vanish—while buying into the idea that despite these realities, we need to give them more.

It is genius though, isn’t it? No matter how bad things get they can always say, “How will raising our taxes help? We need more revenue to build jobs!”

And that’s exactly what they do.

But guess what? When times are good, and you mention a possible tax increase, they have a near flawless counter to that as well, “Why would you raise our taxes, do you want to send us back into recession?”

Do you see just how good of a hoax this is?

But it’s all a con.

They’re nobodies without us. If we don’t buy what they’re selling how will they continue to build this wealth they enjoy? They may invest in businesses and have a few ideas, but without us, they have nobody to work at these places.

It’s time we end this nonsense. Three decades, 5 recessions and one near economic depression later—it’s safe to say Trickle Down Economics has been a failure.

At least for 99% of Americans.

It’s time people realize we are the real job creators in this country, not them. It’s time we stopped giving massive tax incentives to these top 1% of Americans while pinning the burden of reducing our deficits solely on the shoulders of the middle class and our poor.

Yes, we need to reduce spending, but it makes absolutely no sense to allow a trillion dollars in tax revenue to be given back to millionaires every year while we pluck that trillion in spending cuts from public jobs and programs that help build and strengthen our middle class.


What it comes down to is if we agree deficits need to be reduced, and most of us do, the money has to come from somewhere. What seems more rational?:

A) Reducing our deficits by cutting programs that benefit the real driving force behind our economy.
or

B) Slightly higher taxes on those who make millions, so that we don’t have to gut programs, or eliminate public jobs, that middle class Americans desperately need.

Calling a fish a duck doesn’t make it anymore a duck than calling a wealthy person a job creator makes them create a single job. Republicans know this, but it is bad politics to actually admit it.
The middle class needs to stand up and end this joke of an economic policy. It’s time we demand a stop to this myth of Trickle Down Economics.

But hey, the wealthy Americans need not worry, once 99% of Americans have more money in our pocket we’ll be sure to do what you didn’t do—spread it around. We’ll take the lead and fulfill our roles as consumers (the real job creators) and we’ll allow you to go back to what you really are—just the richest 1%.

Too Informed To Vote Republican

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More of the story...
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American Women United shared Addicting Info's photo.

EXACTLY!!!!!

 

This is definitely true. Thanks to Opinionated Democrat.

Posted on Addicting Info.

 

 

 

Fri Jul 05, 2013 at 08:25 AM PDT

Texas Republicans reject 'overregulation.' Of exploding fertilizer plants, not women's bodies.

by Laura ClawsonFollow for Daily Kos Labor

 

attribution: REUTERS

We wouldn't want to overregulate this kind of thing, no sirree.

Priorities, Texas-style:

Texas, whose lax regulatory climate has come in for scrutiny in the aftermath of the West explosion, went into a special session of its state legislature on Monday to push through an omnibus abortion bill designed to regulate 37 abortion clinics out of existence. But the 2013 session will come to a close without any significant action to impose safeguards on the 74 facilities in the state that contain at least 10,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate. Lawmakers in Austin have a handy excuse for punting on new fertilizer regulations: That would be intrusive. State Sen. Donna Campbell, the Republican who helped to shut down Democratic Sen. Wendy Davis' filibuster of the abortion bill on procedural grounds, told the New York Times that lawmakers should be wary of monitoring chemical plants more closely because there's "a point at which you can overregulate."

Because why try to prevent giant f'ing explosions when you could be all up in women's parts? As usual with Republicans, freedom is for the powerful.

Help change Texas politics for the future. Sign our petition drafting Wendy Davis for Governor.

 

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/05/1221404/-Texas-Republicans-reject-overregulation-Of-exploding-fertilizer-plants-not-women-s-bodies#

 

 

Too Informed To Vote Republican

This time around, Fox Republicans are blaming Obama for the financial hits from the Republican sequester that Obama kept telling Republicans would be a very bad thing and should not be allowed to stand. And note the racial resentment cherry on top of Fox Nation’s headline. “Obama Spends $100M on African Trip But Cancels Marines’ July 4th Fireworks.”

This my friends is what we are up against, the propaganda fed to the masses by Rupert and the Feux News is simply lies and puff, and yet those living in a depressed state lap it up like thirsty puppies......Re education camps are sounding pretty good to me these days. I know, I know, not a productive statement but come on, can they really believe this tripe? peterpam
http://www.politicususa.com/2013/07/05/fox-incorrectly-blames-obama-killing-marines-july-4th-fireworks.html

American Women United shared The Knowledge Movement's photo.

 

 

Steve Marmel

From my friends at Living Blue in Georgia.

Good stuff.

Http://Facebook.com/TheMarmelPage

 

Too Informed To Vote Republican

Image from Stop the World, the Teabaggers Want Off & The Daily Edge
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The Pragmatic Progressive Page

From The Other 98%

Who is on welfare?--Dave.

 

1100 People Died For Your Cheap Clothes For $37 A Month

Walmart And Gap Refuse To Sign Broad Safety Agreement In Bangladesh

By Bryce Covert on May 15, 2013

 

 

After six major European retailers announced on Monday and Tuesday that they would sign onto a broad safety upgrade agreement in Bangladesh, American companies Walmart and Gap announced that they would not sign on. Gap has been the most outspoken about its opposition, reports the New York Times:

By far, Gap has been the most vocal company opposed to the plan, expressing concerns that overzealous American lawyers could seize on the agreement to sue American companies on behalf of aggrieved factory workers in Bangladesh — perhaps in the event of a factory fire. Gap said it supported much of the plan, but it proposed changes that would greatly limit any legal liability for a company that violated the plan.

Walmart cited “requirements, including governance and dispute resolution mechanisms” in the agreement as its reason not to sign on, saying they are “appropriately left to retailers, suppliers and government, and are unnecessary to achieve fire and safety goals.”

The company plans to instead use its own safety plan. It began its own factory inspections of 279 Bangladesh facilities this year after the fire in November that killed 110 and it will release the names and inspection information as well as provide fire safety training for every worker in the factories that produce its goods. The inspection results will be posted on June 1.

Labor groups criticized Walmart’s plan, which is voluntary. The broader plan signed by the other companies is legally binding. Labor groups characterized Walmart’s proposal as merely aspirational.
Meanwhile, documents provided to the New York Times show that Walmart sourced clothing from the collapsed factory that killed 1,127:

The Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity has provided The New York Times with photos of several documents not disputed by Wal-Mart that were recovered in the building’s rubble, showing that a Wal-Mart contractor from Canada had produced jeans last year at the Ether Tex factory, which had been situated on the fifth floor of the collapsed Rana Plaza building.

The only American company to sign onto the agreement thus far is PVH, owner of Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, and Izod. A handful of smaller European companies also signed on Tuesday: Benetton, Marks & Spencer, and El Corte Inglés.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/05/15/2013441/walmart-gap-bangladesh/

H&M Responds Slowly to Bangladesh Factory Collapse Killing 1,100

Additional perspective on workplace safety --

H&M Responds Slowly to Bangladesh Factory Collapse Killing 1,100 by Puck Lo, CorpWatch Blog May 19th, 2013

Protest advertisement designed by Avaaz H&M (Hennes & Mauritz), a major Swedish “fast fashion” retailer, led 30 international companies this week to commit to a new $3 billion fund to improve the safety of garment factories in Bangladesh. Watchdog organizations say the companies acted only because of external pressure by activists and workers. The announcement came weeks after Rana Plaza, a building that housed five garment factories, collapsed in Bangladesh last month leaving over 1,100 dead. While H&M was not among the many international buyers that were found to have contracts with the factories, the disaster sparked an activist campaign that put an enormous amount of pressure on the company which is the second biggest garment retailer in the world and the biggest buyer of clothes from Bangladesh. Changes in labor and safety practices generally occur "not for philanthropic reasons but because protests were starting to disturb the supply chain" Nayla Ajaltouni, coordinator of the French branch of Clean Clothes Campaign told Agence France Press after riots in Bangladesh in 2010 led to an increase in the minimum wage there. Two years later the story is still the same. Responding to Disaster In the days following the Rana Plaza collapse, even as emergency workers dug bodies out of the rubble and families of missing workers fought police in heated street demonstrations, the Walt Disney company, which sources production of toys and clothes from low wage countries around the world, announced it was planning to leave Bangladesh by March 2014. But H&M said it had no plans to move. Hanging in the balance are the jobs of over four million workers in Bangladesh who depend on the $20 billion garment industry for their living. The company had the tacit support of many labor organizers who want companies that source from Bangladesh to become more responsible. “We want buyers to stay and use their power to ensure factories treat workers decently,” says Kalpona Akter, an organizer with the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity. H&M’s decision to stay is not entirely altruistic: after all Bangladesh has the world’s lowest minimum wage - $38 a month. Safety is a major concern: Clean Clothes Campaign estimates that more than 500 garment workers died on the job between 2006 and 2012. One reason, say union organizers, is that corrupt government officials tended to look the other way during safety inspections, especially since many senior politicians own garment factories themselves. To address these issues, Bangladeshi and international unions came up with a proposal titled the “Accord on Fire and Building Safety” that they brought to global retailers, suppliers, NGOs, unionists and government officials at a meeting in Dhaka during April 2011. Intended to be a legally enforceable agreement between retailers, unions and suppliers, it promised a total of $3 billion to fund an independent monitoring body that would oversee all of Bangladesh’s 5,000 factories. If a factory did not meet certain standards, it could be shut down. Two years ago, the plan was wildly unpopular. When the unions pushed it, Walmart’s representative shot it down. “It is not financially feasible for the brands to make such investments,” Walmart’s spokesperson said, according to the meeting minutes. H&M, the Gap and other retailers also attended the meeting. All of the big brands and factories all walked away without signing the agreement, said Amirul Haque Amin, president of the National Garment Workers Federation in Bangladesh. A Change of Heart After the Rana Plaza collapse, the unions’ stalemated safety plan suddenly gained traction as public outcry over the deaths mounted. Avaaz, a progressive global campaign group, collected almost one million signatures to pressure H&M and the Gap to sign the agreement. Initially H&M did not respond. Avaaz then racheted up the pressure – it launched an ad campaign featuring a photo of Karl-Johan Persson, CEO of H&M, alongside a young Bangladeshi woman in tears. The ad asked the CEOs of H&M and the Gap to take personal responsibility for the deaths of the Bangladeshi workers. “These factories aren’t sweatshops, they’re deathshops. Hundreds of women have been crushed to death making our clothes,” Avaaz said in a May 9 press release. “Two major clothing companies have signed the robust safety agreement, including PVH -- the owner of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger -- but GAP and H&M have yet to state their positions.” Both Dagens Industri, a Swedish newspaper, and Women’s Wear Daily magazine, a major industry publication, refused to run the ad, says Avaaz. But as a signature campaign started to get hundreds of thousands of signatures on Facebook, H&M caved and announced it would adopt the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh. “Our strong presence in Bangladesh gives us the opportunity to contribute to the improvement of the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and contribute to the community’s development,” Helena Helmersson, an H&M spokesperson, claimed in a press release. “By being on site, put demands on manufacturers and work for continuous improvements, we can slowly but surely contribute to lasting changes.” The company immediately received accolades in the press for “setting an example” and for making a “game-changing” move. (It should be noted that while H&M has committed to pay a maximum of €500,000 ($640,000) a year into the new building fund, the figure represents a little less than 0.02 percent of the $2.7 billion in profits the company made last year) Cambodia Victory This is not the first time that H&M has agreed to change its ways as a result of unwelcome activist attention. For example, Cambodia is often promoted as an alternative to Bangladesh for apparel production. There the minimum wage for garment workers is $66 a month, the second-lowest in the world. Although safety standards are better than in Bangladesh, low pay, long hours, and employers breaking laws are common there, unions say. In February 2012, Asia Floor Wage Alliance, a Cambodian labor group, held a two-day “People’s Tribunal on for Minimum Living Wages and Decent Working Conditions for Garment Workers as a Fundamental Right.” Garment workers testified on their experiences of poverty, short-term contracts, substandard housing conditions and an epidemic of workplace fainting. H&M was invited to attend but did not. "The tribunal reveals a chasm between the CSR [corporate social responsibility] speak of international garment companies and the real situation faced by Asian garment workers," said Anannya Bhattacharjee, coordinator of the International Asia Floor Wage Alliance. Bhattacharjee said that the core issue was that garment workers need to be paid more. "The wage issue is a cross border problem and needs to be addressed as such. International players must work together and use the Asia Floor Wage figure to combat poverty pay in the garment sector," she said. A year later, some 200 Cambodian workers, who sewed underwear for Kingsland Garment Company, a sub-contractor to H&M and Walmart, camped outside their factory in Phnom Penh and held a two-day hunger strike when the company suddenly shut down and seized payment of their legally mandated unemployment wages. “We decided to start sleeping outside of the factory to prevent management from taking the machinery out,” Yorn Sok Leng, 30, told Labor Notes, an activist media organization. Within days, the companies paid them $235,000 in wages owed, handing the organizers a rare victory. Next Step: Minimum Industry Wage New protests across Bangladesh are forcing yet more changes. Strikes effectively shut down most of the garment factories for much of last week – as workers rallied to demand better wages and working conditions. Days ago Bangladesh officials finally gave in and announced that the minimum wage would be raised for the first time since 2010. Persson, the H&M CEO, also agreed to support an increase in the Bangladesh minimum wage. These incremental changes are not enough, says Muhammad Yunus, founder of the micro-credit Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and Nobel Peace Prize winner, who argues that a global approach is needed. “I propose that foreign buyers jointly fix a minimum international wage for the industry,” he wrote in the Guardian recently. “This might be about 50 cents an hour, twice the level typically found in Bangladesh. This minimum wage would be an integral part of reforming the industry, which would help to prevent future tragedies. We have to make international companies understand that while the workers are physically in Bangladesh, they are contributing their labour to the businesses: they are stakeholders. Physical separation should not be grounds to ignore the wellbeing of this labour.” Yunus also suggested raising the final retail price of an item by 50 cents. “Would a consumer in a shopping mall feel upset if they were asked to pay $35.50 instead of $35? My answer is no, they won't even notice,” he said. (Incidentally most U.S. retail chains have not signed on to the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh. Instead, following the Rana Plaza collapse, Walmart and other companies announced their own voluntary monitoring systems and safety programs, which some activists say was little more than a public relations campaign. "It's not surprising, and the timing is fishy," said Brian Finnegan, global worker rights coordinator at the AFL-CIO. "The whole point of what we're doing is to make it binding and enforceable.")   http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15840

14 Retailers Refuse to Improve Safety, Including WalMart, Gap, Macy's, Sears, JCPenney, Target, Kohl's, Nordstrom

1100 People risked their lives and died for $37 A MONTH.

You don't even see these profitable Retailers offering a proposal of their own because they don't want to be bound by reasonable and ethical standards.
 
Globalization offered these greedy retailers the right to exploit the poor.

Bangladesh Factory Safety Accord: The 14 North American Retailers Who Refuse to Sign

Omar Rivero18 May, 2013

 

Ignoring the memory of the over 1,100 factory workers that passed away at the Rana Plaza Factory collapse in Savar, Bangladesh last month, at least 14 major North American retailers have declined to sign the Accord on Fire and Building Safety, an agreement that would have entailed a five year commitment from all participating retailers to conduct independent safety inspections of factories and pay up to $500,000 per year towards safety improvements.

The retailers worried that the agreement would give labor groups and others the ability to sue them in U.S. courts, but anybody that has paid attention to the last 30 years of global unfettered corporate greed knows the truth: these corporations care more about their bottom line than they do about the lives and safety of third-world workers, and their actions reflect it. They are so obsessed with reducing production costs that they couldn’t care less about a few cheap lawsuits from cash-starved labor groups.

While the agreement has garnered overwhelming support outside of the United States, the American public is barely aware of its existence and significance, standing idly by and silently condoning these major multinational corporations as they neglect any semblance of Corporate Social Responsibility for the dangerous workplace conditions they establish for workers in third-world countries.

Several major European retailers like Marks & Spencer, Carrefour, Bennetton, and H&M deserve credit for having rightfully taken responsibility for their previous inaction and joined the agreement.

PVH, parent company to Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, also signed the agreement, along with Abercrombie & Fitch. However, that leaves 14 North American retailers that are shirking responsibility for any future workplace deaths by refusing to sign the accord.

If the American public doesn’t awaken from its slumber and start to apply public pressure on these irresponsible North American corporations, they will have no incentive to put an end to their reckless evasion of Corporate Social Responsibility.

 

Here are their names, spread their shame:

 

Walmart
Gap
Macy’s
Sears/Kmart
JCPenney
VF Corp.
Target
Kohl’s
Cato Fashions
Carter’s
Nordstrom
American Eagle Outfitters
The Children’s Place
Foot Locker

Watch a report about these irresponsible retailers’ refusal to sign the accord by MSNBC’s Chris Haye’s:

The Cost-Benefit Analysis of Safety

NPR does a great job of putting together more than sound bites of the news. The article below highlights the perils of selling government to Industry.

After Deadly Chemical Plant Disasters, There's Little Action

Daniel ZwerdlingMay 17, 2013

 

 

 

You might think that everything would have changed for the chemicals industry on April 16, 1947.

That was the day of the Texas City Disaster, the worst industrial accident in U.S. history. A ship loaded with ammonium nitrate — the same chemical that appears to have caused the disaster last month in West, Texas — exploded. The ship sparked a chain reaction of blasts at chemical facilities onshore, creating what a newsreel at the time called "a holocaust that baffles description."

Or you might think everything would have changed on Dec. 3, 1984. That was the day that the U.S.-owned Union Carbide pesticide plant on the edge of Bhopal, India, suddenly began to leak — spewing a cloud of deadly gas over the city. By all accounts, thousands of people died; the Indian government never made an accurate count. Union Carbide paid $470 million damages.

Or you might think the chemical industry would have been forced to reform after March 23, 2005, when an explosion at a BP refinery in Texas City killed 15 workers and injured 180 others, according to a federal report. A BP spokesman says the company paid $1.6 billion to compensate victims and their families.

Or change could have taken place after any of the hundreds of fatal accidents at chemical facilities in the past dozen years, according to the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, an independent federal agency, based on media reports.

For years, a loose network of environmental groups, public health organizations and members of Congress, both Democratic and Republican, has fought to require companies to try to redesign their chemical facilities, to make them safer. Engineers often call the approach "inherently safer" technology or design. But industry executives and their allies in Congress have blocked the proposals.

Christine Todd Whitman, a former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, says she was angry when she heard about the West fertilizer plant explosion in April. "It just made me so mad, you wanted to take Congress and shake it, and say, 'Listen, what more does it take for you to understand that we need some action here?' "

Whitman led the EPA for President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2003. "I'm a Republican; I'm leery of too much regulation," she says, "but there are times when you need it. There's a reason for some of this stuff."

Over the past few decades, government and industry have taken some steps to make chemical plants in the U.S. safer. For instance, Congress passed two landmark laws in the years after the Bhopal disaster. Together, they require plant owners to disclose exactly which dangerous chemicals they use at specific plants; estimate how many people would be at risk of getting killed or injured if there were an accident at the plant; and spell out what steps they are taking to prevent it.

But after terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, security specialists began to worry that those laws weren't strong enough.

Solutions Vs. Band-Aids

"Chemical plants are really pre-positioned weapons of mass destruction," says Charles Sam Faddis, a former CIA officer who ran the CIA team that searched for WMDs in Iraq after the U.S. invaded. They didn't find weapons of mass destruction there, but Faddis says he realized that if terrorists had attacked a U.S. chemical plant instead of the twin office towers, they might have caused a bigger disaster.

The chemical industry's own reports back then, filed under federal law, show there were hundreds of plants across the country where a single incident could potentially kill thousands of people. For instance, D.C. Water — Washington's water and sewer utility — reported that if tanks of chlorine gas ruptured at its Blue Plains wastewater treatment plant, a deadly cloud could reach the U.S. Capitol.

So, some Bush administration officials decided that there was a fundamental problem with the way the government regulates chemical plants. The laws tell chemical plant owners, in effect, that it's fine to use large amounts of deadly chemicals, even if the plant is next to a city — as long as the company protects them with measures such as strong tanks and fences. And in case there is an accident or a terrorist attack, the company needs to have an emergency action plan to protect the community.

Officials at the time, like Bob Bostock, EPA's homeland security adviser, said those aren't solutions but Band-Aids.

"It was the only thing that kept me up at night," Bostock says — the fear that terrorists would blow up a tank of chlorine or other toxic chemical and trigger a disaster in a major city.

Executives at some companies used the inherently safer design approach after Sept. 11 and reduced their use of dangerous chemicals. D.C. Water, for example, got rid of deadly chlorine gas only a few months after the attacks and started treating wastewater with safer methods.

Bostock and Whitman drafted a law in 2002 that would have required chemical facilities across the country to see if they, too, could use inherently safer design.

Bostock says they knew that every plant might not be able to eliminate or cut back on its use of the deadliest chemicals. At some facilities, it might be technically impossible or too expensive. But the draft legislation would have required executives to at least examine whether it could be done.

"If there was ever a successful attack on one of these facilities or even an accidental release," Bostock says, "the first question you would get asked as a policymaker is, 'You knew this was a problem. Why haven't you done anything about it?' "

Meanwhile, up on Capitol Hill, a separate bill calling for inherently safer technology sailed unanimously through a key Senate committee. Then everything screeched to a halt. Whitman and Bostock say top aides to President Bush told them the push for inherently safer design "was not going anywhere," as Bostock remembers. "It was dead." White House officials never publicly explained why.

Since then, a coalition of more than 100 public health, environmental and labor groups and security specialists has tried repeatedly to get Congress to reconsider. It tried in 2003, 2006, 2009 and again in 2010. But in each case, opponents managed to block the proposals.

Whitman attributes the defeats, in part, to pressure from the chemical industry. "There are very powerful influences, and in politics you always sort of trace that back to the money," Whitman says.

Campaign finance reports, collated by the Center for Responsive Politics on OpenSecrets.org, show that the petrochemicals industry has been one of the main funders for key members of Congress who have opposed inherently safer design. And lobbying reports, collated by the Sunlight Foundation, suggest that chemical industry trade groups have made the fight against bills requiring inherently safer technology one of their priorities.

The Industry Response

Industry spokesmen say petrochemicals are already one of the safest and most regulated industries. "We stand second to none as the chemical industry in trying to implement an appropriate focus on process safety and security," says Michael Walls, vice president of the American Chemistry Council, which represents most of the leading corporations from Dow and DuPont to Exxon Mobil and Chevron. The council has lobbied Congress for years to kill bills concerned with inherently safer technology. In fact, together with other industry groups, they have told Congress that companies should not even be required to consider whether it should be implemented.

On the face of it, the call for companies to switch to safer chemicals "does sound attractive," says Walls. "But the basic choice comes down to, do you mandate something like a review of inherently safer technology, or do you want to require its consideration at the right time for each particular facility? One of the questions here is, who decides? Who decides what is inherently safer in any particular case?"

Walls and other industry spokesmen, such as Kathy Mathers, vice president of The Fertilizer Institute, worry that federal regulators might tell chemical companies how to run their business.
"Agriculture knows agriculture," says Mathers. The institute represents companies that make and sell ammonium nitrate, among other chemicals, which may have caused the explosion last month in Texas and has caused some of the worst industrial accidents in history. "And certainly the regulators have their role in society. At this point we have not seen a version of an inherently safer technology bill that we would support."

That perspective puzzles Rafael Moure-Eraso, chairman of the main federal agency that investigates accidents at chemical facilities. "I was quite surprised that anyone would resist this concept, this concept of prevention," he says, sitting in his corner office at the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, not far from the White House. The CSB, whose members are appointed by the President, is currently investigating what caused last month's fatal explosion at the West Fertilizer facility in Texas.

Some of the CSB's official reports on chemical plant explosions recommend that the industry use inherently safer technology as one of the main strategies for preventing accidents in the first place — and limiting the damage when they do occur.

In fact, Moure-Eraso says he supports the idea of a law requiring plant owners to see if their plants can eliminate or reduce the need for dangerous chemicals. "You have to make a cost-benefit about what is more costly: to engage in a process to try to mitigate or avoid hazards; or deal with the families of the people who get killed, the destruction of an industry, the destruction of a community," Moure-Eraso says. "And I claim that it's a lot more expensive to deal with these catastrophic losses than what it will take to invest to prevent this to happen in the first place."

Advocates of inherently safer design wonder now where President Obama stands on this issue. Back when he was in the Senate, Obama co-sponsored a bill that would have required plants to consider inherently safer technology. And his administration supported the concept after he became president. But Rick Hind, legislative director of Greenpeace, says members of the coalition that has been campaigning for the approach are frustrated that Obama hasn't spoken out about it recently.

"We're very concerned," says Hind, "because we've been asking [the Obama administration] to look into this and to do something since 2011. And they said, 'Well, after the election maybe we'll do something.' And now, we're still waiting."
 
NPR asked White House officials where President Obama stands now on the issue of inherently safer technology. A spokesman sent this brief reply:

"Chemical plant safety is a high priority, and federal departments and agencies will continue to work within their authorities and with state officials to support the ongoing investigation and assess appropriate information that can help inform ongoing efforts to ensure chemical plant safety."

 

http://www.wbur.org/npr/184500477/after-deadly-chemical-plant-disasters-theres-little-action

 

 

For $37/Month, 700 DEAD

Bangladesh Building Collapse Death Toll Tops 700 As Protests Rage On

AP | By By JULHAS ALAM

Onlookers and family members of missing garment factory workers gather near the site as workers and army personnel, not pictured, use heavy machinery as they work to clear the site and recover bodies of victims from the rubble of a garment factory building collapse, Monday, May 6, 2013 (AP Photo/Ismail Ferdous)

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Hundreds of survivors of last month's collapse of a building housing garment factories in Bangladesh protested for compensation Tuesday, as the death toll from the country's worst-ever industrial disaster passed 700.

The police control room overseeing the recovery operation said the death toll stood at 705 on Tuesday afternoon as workers pulled more bodies out of the wreckage of the eight-story building that was packed with workers at five garment factories when it collapsed on April 24. The factories were making clothing bound for major retailers around the world.

The disaster is the worst ever in the garment sector, surpassing the 1911 garment disaster in New
York's Triangle Shirtwaist factory, which killed 146 workers, and more recent tragedies such as a 2012 fire that killed about 260 people in Pakistan and one in Bangladesh that killed 112, also in 2012. It is also one of the deadliest industrial accidents ever.

No one knows what the final toll will be, as the exact number of people inside Rana Plaza at the time of the collapse was unknown. More than 2,500 people were rescued alive.

Hundreds of garment workers who survived the disaster blocked a major highway near the accident site in a Dhaka suburb on Tuesday to demand the payment of wages and other benefits. No violence was reported, although traffic was disrupted for hours.

Local government administrator Yousuf Harun said they are working with the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association to ensure the workers get paid.

The workers, many who made little more than the national minimum wage of about $38 per month, are demanding at least four months in salary. The workers had set Tuesday as the deadline for the payment of wages and other benefits.

Harun said no salary remained unpaid except for the month of April and there was an agreement for the workers to receive an additional three months of pay. After a team from the BGMEA arrived at the protest and pledged to make the payment later Tuesday, the workers left the highway, Harun said.
The BGMEA had said Monday that it was preparing a "complete list" of the workers employed in the factories and they would need a few more days to finish it and to clear the salary.

Bangladesh earns nearly $20 billion a year from exports of the garment products, mainly to the United States and Europe.

Authorities have not set any specific timeframe to complete the recovery operation at the building site, saying they will continue until all bodies and debris are removed.

Officials say the building's owner illegally added three floors to Rana Plaza and allowed the garment factories to install heavy machines and generators.

Photos on link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/07/bangladesh-building-collapse-death-toll-700_n_3227277.html

 

Government used to protect workers....

With the goose-stepping toward deregulation and slashing government spending, the deregulation folks have succeeded where they couldn't rescind regulations.

Remember, Middleboro has a large ammonia storage facility and a freight line running through the town.

A community leveled --

Below are some interesting excerpts from Democracy Now --


.....every year in the United States, 4,500 Americans die a year in workplace accidents.

There are 2,200 inspectors in this country, OSHA inspectors, for eight million workplaces. Due to the understaffing of OSHA, OSHA could inspect a plant once every 129 years.

.....OSHA is a top enemy, and workplace safety rules, of deregulatory people. For instance, last year the Obama administration proposed a rule that would have limited-would have put rules in place to protect children working on farms. Children that work on farms die at six times the rate of children working in other industries. The Obama administration, under pressure leading up to the election, withdrew that rule and said that they would never submit that rule again during the term of the Obama administration. That's an unprecedented thing. So, obviously, workplace safety is one of the things the anti-regulatory people go after the most.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what about Texas in terms of workplace safety compared to other states?

 

MIKE ELK: Yeah. Texas, as statistics shows, has the highest rate of workplace deaths of any state in the country. And a big part of that can be contributed to the fact that it's one of the most non-union states in the country. Quite frankly, no worker is going to speak up and call OSHA. OSHA has such a severe limited budget that they typically don't go and inspect a workplace unless they get a phone call from a worker saying there's a big problem. And when you're scared of losing your job, you're not going to do that. So, places that tend to have less unions tend to have much higher rates of workplace accidents. And as, you know, the West, Texas, accident showed, workplace accidents just don't hurt workers, they hurt the surrounding community, as well.

 

 

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/344-208/17034-could-greater-oversight-by-osha-have-prevented-deadly-texas-blast